What is Cula?
What is Cula, and can you share more about your mission?
We're the digital infrastructure empowering carbon removal to scale. We focus on what Bloomberg called the three biggest letters: MRV- Monitoring, Reporting and Verification. Much of MRV is still done through pen-on-paper measurements or self-typed Excel models sent by e-mail and verified months later. We're working to change that profoundly, for example we were the first company to integrate machine and IoT data to monitor projects. Thereby we help to automate the data collection for suppliers and achieve a much higher level of security for the buyers.
MRV Challenges
What are the main challenges for MRV?
For MRV, we see three main challenges that we need to tackle:
- Manual data input/ Quality of data
- Self reported data
- Transparency
Manual data input is a huge quality problem. Just think a few years ahead and we actually go to billions of tons of carbon removal. This market cannot rely on pen and paper, we need to first digitize operations and then replace manual data input wherever possible with machine-generated data sources.
Second is the critical need for independent reporting. Many projects currently handle their own MRV, creating a substantial conflict of interest. It is difficult to imagine a trillion-dollar market where the entities responsible for execution are also tasked with providing auditable data—particularly in a domain still reliant on manual data input.
Lastly, transparency. It’s a concept everyone advocates for, yet much of the verification process still occurs behind closed doors. At the end of the day, you might receive a certificate stating, "You removed one tonne of CO2," but it's crucial to ensure the data underpinning that verification is accessible and transparent. That’s where we strive to go above and beyond with our Cula Carbon Hub. The data is fully explorable, allowing users to dive into every detail. Even someone new to carbon dioxide removal (CDR) can clearly understand how the process works.
Technological Infrastructure
Can you discuss the technological infrastructure that supports your data-driven tracking system? How has technology enhanced your carbon removal monitoring and reporting efficiency and precision?
Our software is built as an offline-first web app, making it highly accessible and reliable. This architecture allows us to support partners worldwide, particularly in remote areas where carbon removal often takes place.
On top of this foundational infrastructure, we have developed a machine data gateway that connects to sensors and peripheral devices such as scales and meters. In some cases, we track data from over 800 sensors in real time.
This setup enables us to automate a lot of the data collection process, in some cases more than 80%, and is specifically designed for high-tech facilities to simplify their daily operations, showcase their capabilities to buyers, and provide greater assurance that one ton of removal truly corresponds to one ton of CO2 removed.
The potential for technology to scale this sector is only just beginning to unfold. MRV is far from being fully realized, and we are excited to continually improve the precision of tracking and automate as much as possible. This year, we made great progress in advancing MRV, achieving capabilities that far surpass what was possible when we first entered the market. Today, we track more data points in a single second than were collected in an entire month at the start of the year.
CDR Verification
What specific methodologies and standards does your company adhere to when verifying carbon removal activities? How do you ensure that the data collected is accurate and meets the highest industry standards?
We are standard-agnostic, meaning we can work with any standard globally because the volume and quality of the data we collect typically exceed existing requirements.
Our role is not merely to comply with standards but to help shape and advance them. For instance, we were the first in using machine data to monitor projects at a time when no standard demanded it. Our role as a MRV system is to make tracking as precise, but also easy as possible and whereas the role of the standards is especially on the advancement of the latest science.
In the end, it’s a dynamic interplay between us and the standards, working together to make this market as secure and reliable as possible.
Industry Collaborations
In the carbon removal industry, collaboration is crucial. How does your company collaborate with other stakeholders, including suppliers, buyers, and industry experts?
Partnerships are at the heart of what we do. As a neutral company focused solely on MRV, we neither broker nor trade credits, ensuring we remain free of conflicts of interest. This neutrality allows us to collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders across the CDR ecosystem—including marketplaces, exchanges, standards organizations, and research institutions—to scale carbon removal effectively.
Measurable Impact
How does Cula help to remove more CO2, what is the measurable impact?
This is a classic question from an impact VC. The positive impact comes from our focus on data. We believe in quantifiable, verifiable carbon removals. More data means less risk, which ultimately leads to greater impact. By providing robust data, we help buyers build the trust needed to invest in projects, increasing the likelihood of outcomes such as offtake agreements.
Additionally, the data we collect accelerates the development of subsequent plants—second, third, tenth, and beyond—by enabling our partners to showcase operational data that was previously inaccessible. This data demonstrates that the technology is mature and ready to scale.
While we don’t directly remove carbon ourselves, we empower our partners to scale faster, enabling them to remove significantly more carbon in the long run.
Into the future
What are the risks for the CDR industry?
I think it comes down to maintaining integrity in the market. The market is starting to scale, and currently, it relies heavily on trust. We need digital infrastructure to support its growth to a trillion dollar industry. If the carbon removal market loses its integrity, it will be almost impossible to build it up again. We need to make sure from the beginning that this market is really changing the game and not making the same mistakes that were made in the overall voluntary carbon market.